Something's up. :(

Newman

Newman

Elite Fish
#21
Sep 22, 2009
4,668
0
0
Northern NJ
#21
are you using API liquids for both?
if so then the KH test turns blue after a drop. then it turns greenish the drop before it turns yellow which is the final color youre looking for there.
The GH test turns peach-orange at first and then will turn green when done.

if youre doing API tests then nothing should be red or purple....
also 23 on both means that its 23dKH/dGH and around 400+ ppm, but less than 500ppm. thats kinda better than my tap water whose GH is around 33 drops last time i checked. my KH is around 9 drops for my tap tho, but that does matter, it only means your water is hard and is buffered very well.

Finally what is your tap's pH again? over 8? sounds perfect for goldfish, rift cichlids and livebearing fish. basically you can keep any alkaline loving fish there.
you can easily mix your tap with RO for a 50% 50% mixture and get around half of those KG and GH in the water. I wonder what the pH would be? anyway it possible to get your pH down with RO water. happy mixing!
 

fisherjean

fisherjean

Medium Fish
#22
Sep 6, 2010
50
0
0
Minneapolis
#22
Yeah I'd been looking at too many test tubes I think! lol I'm doing API tests, I just mixed up my colors in the reporting here...

The tap pH is 8.2 if I'm reading it right. That's what it's seemed like anyway.

I started mixing today and fiddling around. It seemed like a 1/3 tap 2/3 RO got me to about 7.4 and 9/9 GH/KH. That sounds ok no?

So I guess my plan at this point is to change out 4 gallons a day (2 stock pots' worth :p) replacing it with the mixed water. I did add a little bit of buffers straight to the tank and a little R/O Right - a little - just in the interest of trying to get this thing stablized. I was afraid of messing too much with it other than the water changes. Honestly I'm scared off doing big water changes now.

I also picked up a very large plastic plant, tall enough to reach the surface and arch out as a top cover. I just wondered if they were feeling secure enough. That was kind of wild to watch. The tank dynamic changed pretty immediately. Lots more action midtank.

Also, I asked my son if I was imagining this or not, but he says he sees the same thing: the black phantoms both have darkened their black in the last 24 hours, most noticeably the one that's been nearly albino this whole time - he's now looking like a textbook black phantom. ??? There are still bursts of shimmy-looking movement, but there's also stretches of chasing each other and very active behavior again. I don't know that we're out of the woods, but a day has certainly made a difference.
 

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